There are many known methods for evaluating yarn samples. One such method is linear in that it only measures a yarn sample, from one end to another, in minute linear segments which together, in sequential order from the first segment to the last segment, represent the yarn sample. Each segment represents a single length of yarn and is measured for one or more qualities used to grade the yarn. The representation can be displayed to enable a person to visualize the yarn sample, as if wound onto a taper board or reconfigured into a fabric sample, and to manually check for unacceptable patterns and/or flaws that are too close together. The method may also include a means for electronically counting the number of events or flaws along the length of running yarn and dynamically clearing portions of the running yarn to remove some or all of the events as required to achieve a particular grade of yarn.
The current methods are not able to electronically evaluate long lengths of yarn because to do so under the current methods requires more computer memory and processing than economically feasible for yarn evaluators. The current methods require a computer to memorize the data from each measured segment along the length of a yarn sample.
The current methods do not provide a means for electronically delineating a running yarn, an electronically represented yarn wound onto a taper board, or a fabric sample into blocks or cells, which may or may not be adjacent to one another along the yarn sample, rather than consecutive yarn segments.
The current methods to not provide a means for electronically evaluating a yarn sample or fabric for patterns or flaws located in nonlinear proximity to each other when wound onto a taper board or reconfigured into a fabric. In other words, yarns and fabric samples are evaluated by current methods based how many flaws exist within a given length of yarn, rather than how many flaws exist in a quadrant of yarn, which may comprise nonconsecutive lengths of a yarn sample, when reconfigured onto a taper board or into a fabric. To evaluate reconfigured yarn, the current methods require a visual display, either as an electronic representation of a yarn or fabric sample or as an actual yarn sample wound mechanically onto a taper board, and a person to manually evaluate the display.